Australia .. controversy after the release of a teacher who seduced her teenage student

The release of an Australian teacher before the end of her sentence, after she was involved in seducing one of her teenage students, sparked a wide wave of controversy, especially since the case turned into a public opinion issue when it was exposed several months ago.

Physical education teacher Katie Smith was 26 when she started sending inappropriate content to one of her 14-year-old students on social media, only to be discovered when one of the videos started going around the school.

At her first court hearing, the teacher pleaded guilty to the "sexual grooming" of a teenage child.

The District Court judge sentenced her to three years and 10 months in prison, with no parole for two years and three months.

She was due to be released in December of this year, but she successfully argued in the Court of Appeal that her sentence was clearly excessive.

At the conclusion of her appeal hearing on February 3, she was re-sentenced to two years and four months in prison, with a non-parole period of one year and five months, resulting in her immediate release.

The court revealed the details of the case recently when the Court of Appeal issued its reasons.

She stated that the story began when the student sent his teacher requesting to add him to her page on Snapshat, after which their messages took a suspicious turn that included sending mutual pornographic pictures, and their relationship later included fleeting encounters.

But everything fell apart in February 2019 when the police came to talk to her after an explicit video of her in high school began circulating. She then called the teenager, telling him the police were at her house and warning him not to say anything because they were “going to get in trouble.”

The court later heard her confession, as she defended herself from her crisis marriage when she discovered that her husband had sent sexually explicit pictures to another person, and that she was "craving for attention".

In his ruling, the judge considered that “all the behavior was motivated by the applicant’s desire for attention and nothing else, on the other hand, the seriousness of the crimes was increased by the age difference between the victim and the plaintiff and by her position of trust.”

According to the Australian newspaper, The National, the court found that she was suffering from a "personality disorder", and the appeals court concluded that the ruling against her was "manifestly unfair".

After serving 17 months in prison, she was released and will be subject to a community correctional order for 11 months.

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